Rough Week For Monsanto

It’s been a rough week for Monsanto. The reaction of the European Union to postpone the reregistration of glyphosate and the state of Arkansas banning the use of Dicamba are real setbacks for Monsanto and the Agrichemical industry. Finally, communities and farms harmed by these two dangerous chemicals are fighting back–and winning.

Opposition from France and Italy doomed the European Union vote on Thursday to reauthorize the world’s most popular weedkiller, glyphosate, a decision that came hours after Arkansas regulators moved to ban an alternative weedkiller for much of 2018.

The decisions are a double blow to the agrochemical industry and particularly to the chemicals giant Monsanto. An appeals committee of European officials will convene this month, though, to weigh again whether to continue to allow glyphosate just weeks before its registration expires. The chemical is the main ingredient in Roundup, one of Monsanto’s flagships, but its patent has ended and it is now made by much of the industry. Read more in The New York Times.

Arkansas soybean farmers who rely on a chemical called Dicamba to kill weeds must stop using it during the growing season next year. That’s because it has allegedly been drifting to neighboring farms and killing crops.

California will restrict farmers’ use of certain pesticides near schools and day-care centers under a new rule announced this week that regulators said is among the toughest in the U.S. Read more in the LA Times.

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According to Cary Giguere, Agrichemical Program manager at the agriculture agency, the dramatic rise in glyphosate use was a result of increased cover cropping on cornfields, where herbicides like glyphosate are used for what they call the “burn-down,” or killing of the cover crop,” before corn planting begins in the spring. Learn more: regenerationvermont.org/gmo-corn-to-blame-for-soaring-pesticide-use/... See MoreSee Less

The Chilean government, facing skyrocketing rates of obesity, is waging war on unhealthy foods with a phalanx of marketing restrictions, mandatory packaging redesigns and labeling rules aimed at transforming the eating habits of 18 million people. Nutrition experts say the measures are the world’s most ambitious attempt to remake a country’s food culture and could be a model for how to turn the tide on a global obesity epidemic that researchers say contributes to four million premature deaths a year. Could this be a model for the U.S.? regenerationvermont.org/they-slayed-tony-the-tiger-chiles-war-on-obesity-took-cartoon-icons-off-j...... See MoreSee Less

Gov. Phil Scott sketched out a plan at a dairy conference Thursday that could include making money from the pollutant plaguing Vermont’s waterways — phosphorus.

👉Regeneration Vermont’s take by Michael Colby:Any attempts to seriously address the dairy/phosphorus/water quality problems must begin with turning off the pollution spigot: the vastly unsustainable amount of manure created by Vermont’s 135,000 mostly confined cows.But getting rid of farms is not the solution. Rather, we need to transition away from the industrial, commodity model that is holding all of Vermont hostage – not just the dairy farmers who are getting less than the cost of production for their milk, but also our environment, our culture, and – of course – our cows. Read more of our thoughts and the article on our website: regenerationvermont.org/scott-remove-phosphorus/... See MoreSee Less